Forever and always
by jnicweb
Summary: And his voice was just a whisper as he said; "I love you forever, forever and always. Please just remember even if I'm not there, I'll always love you, forever and always."
1. Fitzsimmons

**This is based off of the song _Forever and Always_ by Parachute. I strongly recommend you listen to it before/during reading this. It will still make sense if you don't, but it will make more sense if you do. **

**I felt this deserved a special disclaimer because I used a song...Disclaimer: I don't own the song or AOS.**

There is a point in everyone's life when you know things are going to change. You may not know how, but you know nothing will ever be the same again.

He hadn't come home from the lab yet. I had left early to surprise him with his favorite dinner; buffalo mozzarella cheese with prosciutto and a hint of pesto aioli. I hadn't worried at first because he had probably gotten caught up in his latest experiment and had simply forgotten about the time. But after I had made the sandwiches, cleaned the house, done the laundry and he still wasn't home, I started to get a little worried. He was supposed to be here two hours ago.

I thought about calling the lab, but since it was super-secret I wasn't supposed to call from my cell phone just in case someone was tapping the line. And Fitz had the only secured line phone-at the lab.

So I just sat at the kitchen table, tapping my finger-tips against the wood. Then I got fidgety and couldn't sit still, so I started pacing around our small apartment. Eventually I realized that something must be wrong. He never got _this_ lost in his work, especially this late at night.

To distract, I thought of the beautiful month of December. When he got down on one knee and asked me the question that changed my life. I started to twirl the ring on my finger as I replayed the memory over and over again.

I had just calmed myself down, when I got the phone call that would forever change my life, and it wasn't for the better.

I picked up the phone from its cradle against the wall. Fitz always made fun of me because one of the most important things I wanted in our apartment was a landline because I was always losing my cell phone. But now I hated it with all my heart. It was the thing that brought me the worst news of my life.

I tried to listen to the lady on the other line, but I could only pick up random words and phrases. _Car. Drunk. Driving. Terrible accident. Terrible accident. Terrible accident._ It was a drum beat in my mind. I couldn't stop hearing it. It was a repeating phrase I wanted erased from my vocabulary. The doctor side of me wanted to ask if they were doing anything about the concussion he was sure to have, and of course internal bleeding was a problem they had to address. The doctor side was very methodical about what to do first about the injuries. The scientist side of me wanted to take a look at the drunk driver and see what his BAC was. That side just wanted to figure out what went wrong. The researcher side of me wanted to make a correlation between how high his BAC was, and how grave the patient's injuries were. That part wanted to write a paper about the dangers of drunk driving. But the girlfriend side of me just wanted to know if he was going to be okay.

The four sides battled with each other as I drove to the hospital. As I walked in the doors of the hospital it seemed like it would be the doctor side. But when a bland nurse saw me and somehow knew who I was there to see, because I didn't remember telling her my name, I realized that it was _Fitz_ in here, not some random patient I had to treat, and he could be _dying._ And here I was, worried about the BAC level of the drunk driver, or the connection between alcohol and car accidents. I was ashamed of my initial reaction to Fitz's accident.

As I thought that word, _accident,_ it suddenly hit me that I might never be able to talk to Fitz ever again. I might not be able to glance over and see him immensely concentrated on an experiment, or immersed in a book. We might never eat those sandwiches that were still sitting on the dining room table back at the apartment.

I tried to push those thoughts out of my head, and followed the nurse through a maze of hallways. Eventually we stopped outside a door. It didn't look any different than any of the other doors. It was white, with a gold doorknob, and it had a folder in the little bin on the wall that held records and such. The folder was blue.

The nurse reached for the blue folder. I couldn't take my eyes of that damn blue folder. It was distracting me from the tragedy that had infiltrated my life, and I couldn't be more grateful for it.

She must have noticed that I wasn't paying attention, because I felt her take my elbow and lead me through the door. I was quite content to just stay outside, where I would sit in my little bubble of denial and never have to face whatever lied behind that door, but she had other ideas.

She dragged me through the doorway and placed me in a chair. It was also blue.

The chair was placed strategically next to the bed, angled so you could see the pillows as well as the door.

I locked my eyes on the foot of the bed, where I could see the outline of two legs.

I forced myself to lift my gaze up, up, up to the pillows.

I wished I hadn't.

He was pale. That was my first impression before my breath caught in my mouth when he opened his eyes. They were blue. Bluer than I had remembered them being this morning.

He tried to pretend that nothing had happened. He talked to me about the new house we wanted to buy across from the water. He mentioned the fact that it had a landline, probably wanting me to laugh or smile at our little inside joke, but all I could think of was _terrible accident._ My eyes filled with tears, and he scrambled to backtrack and fix his mistake. So we talked about work. Work was safe. No feelings or sadness or unexplainable things in work. There weren't any surprises, or unknown variables that had to be accounted for. Everything was precise and everything had a solution.

We talked for what seemed like hours. The conversation flowed from work to a book he was reading, and the movie we both wanted to see at the movie theater, to Doctor Who. Soon I forgot where we were, and that he was hooked up to an IV, and that the beeps on his heart monitor were a bit slow.

Then he mentioned a plan to go out for drinks with some friends and it all came back. _Car. Drunk. Driving. Terrible accident. Terrible accident. Terrible accident._

I couldn't put our lives on hold because of this terrible accident. I had an idea.

I called in the nurses and brought in a chaplain. The couple next door were only too happy to lend their rings to us. The chaplain says a few verses and Fitz and I share probably the most awkward kiss ever, with me bending over his bed, and him straining to meet me halfway. Everyone's laughing, even though tears are streaming down my face.

I finish the vows that I made up on the spot, but the beeps are getting too slow. His voice is almost a whisper as he says;

 _I love you forever, forever and always. Please just remember even if I'm not there, I'll always love you, forever and always._

My breaking point was when I saw those two sandwiches on the counter top.

 **Hope you liked this! There will be another one-shot about Bobbi and Hunter in the same scenario.**


	2. Huntingbird

**This is also a different rendition of the song Forever and Always by Parachute, with Bobbi and Hunter as the main characters.**

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just can't keep it all together.

He was supposed to be home. I had left work early to clean up our apartment before we had visitors over, because he sure as hell wasn't going to. After I had dusted, vacuumed, and tidied up every surface of our messy place, I decided I deserved a drink. I got out Hunter's special whiskey he saves for very special occasions, and poured myself a drink. That's when I realized how much time had passed. He was supposed to be home two hours ago.

At first I wasn't worried, because we often get held up at work. It was the reason for many missed dinners and dates, as well as arguments about responsibility and loyalty. Hunter thought I had too little of the first and too much of the last.

Then I realized that he was just supposed to be doing paperwork. But, there was that phrase again; _supposed to be._ That didn't mean he _was_ doing paperwork, only that's what he was _supposed to be_ doing. Typical of Hunter to get tied up doing paperwork.

After a couple more minutes I started getting antsy. I didn't like not knowing where he was, or what he was doing, or why he was late. He usually called me if he was staying late at work, or if there was something he needed to do, or if he would be late. He was normally good at letting me know where he was. But I had kept a vice-like grip on my cell phone and it hadn't rung. Not once.

Of course, after I jinxed it, my phone rang. The voice on the other end of the line kept trying to tell me something, but all I could hear was _terrible accident._ There had been a _terrible accident_ and someone I knew had been gravely injured. As soon as I heard that, I threw a coat on, grabbed my shoes from the corner and ran outside to my car.

The lady from the hospital was still talking to me about the _terrible accident_ but I wasn't paying attention any more. I was too busy trying not to kill myself as I maneuvered around slow cars, pedestrians, buses, or anything else that was in my way. I'm sure I broke dozens of speed limits, as well as laws, but my mind was not on the road. It was in December. Reliving a memory.

We were at home. We had just moved into the cutesy little apartment on the third floor with a view of the ocean. It was within walking distance, which had been a must for me. We were moving boxes in from the moving truck. Well, Hunter was moving the boxes, I was directing him where to put the boxes. Soon we were finished, and all of our possessions were stacked up against walls and on top of furniture. We sighed simultaneously at the huge job we had in front of us. I noticed he had walked over to me and my boxes. He got down on one knee and at first I didn't realize what was happening. I thought he was just going to unload some boxes. But then he asked me if I would marry him. And the first thing that popped out of my mouth was _again?_ Haven't we already done this? But he was serious. And I realized, why shouldn't I be serious? So I said yes to that question for the second time to the same man.

I arrived at the hospital, surprisingly unharmed, except for a couple of nerves that had been frayed by my anxious worrying.

I managed to spit out my name, as well as Hunter's, to the lady at the front desk and another lady started to lead me down a maze of hallways. I tried to walk briskly and professionally, like this was just another day at the hospital, but I couldn't. I kept remembering Hunter's face after I said yes back in December. I wanted to spend the rest of my life looking at his dumb face. So I probably looked like I was stumbling behind the nurse, not dignified like I was hoping.

Eventually we stopped outside a door. There was nothing particularly different about it. It looked the same as the rest of the doors in the hallway, but I knew that whatever happened behind it would change my life forever.

I took a deep breath and pushed it open.

My first impression was white.

My second thought was that Hunter did not deserve to die in this crisp, white, emotionless hospital. He deserved to go out in the field, not bested by a stupid drunk driver in a meaningless car accident.

I walked over to the only bed in the room.

He was sleeping.

I sat in the chair placed conveniently next to the bed. Well, "sat" is generous. I fell into the chair. I had lost all the strength I had managed to keep after I heard _terrible accident,_ and seeing him here in the hospital bed, looking frail and small, made me want to cry.

I must have made a noise, because his eyes suddenly shot open.

They were the same hazel color I remembered, which surprised me. I don't know why I thought something about him would change, to signify this life-changing event, but nothing was different. He was still the same Hunter, with the same color eyes. Nothing had changed, but at the same time, everything had.

I reached out to hold his hand. I don't know who I was trying to comfort; him or me. He weakly squeezed my hand, and that made tears leak out of my eyes. He was not the same Hunter I remembered. The old Hunter would poke fun at the way I was struggling to keep my emotions in check, and would never initiate the hand squeezing game. That was my thing. Not his. The old Hunter would squeeze my hand with the same pressure used to intimidate new recruits, not this weaker version of his strength. He would probably never be the same ever again.

That gave me an idea. I gathered up the nurses into our room and told them to call in a chaplain. The couple next door were only too happy to lend us rings, but I told them we already had some. From my neck, I dug out the chain I always wore. On it were two rings.

Hunter blinked rapidly at the sight of them. I had told him I had gotten rid of them after we divorced. I told him I wanted to forget. But how could I erase something that was a part of my life? I didn't want to forget, no matter what I told Hunter.

The chaplain said a few words and I put his ring on his finger, where it belonged.

Everyone was laughing and enjoying the bittersweet moment, even as tears were cascading down my face.

We finished the vows that we still knew by heart from the first time. But the beeps were getting too slow. And his voice was just a whisper as he said;

 _I love you forever, forever and always. Please just remember even if I'm not there, I'll always love you, forever and always._


End file.
